Follow us on Instagram! TikTok faces House vote, news outlets struggle to properly characterize Andrew Tate, Google restricts its A.I. bot Gemini from talking 2024 election, the RNC hires an election denying OAN personality, Steve Bannon pushes more Taylor Swift conspiracy theories, a judge sets a Roman Polanski civil trial for 2025, "The Batman" gets delayed until 2026, and so much more. But first, the A1.

A Hur'd Mentality

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Oops?

After spending weeks breathlessly questioning President Joe Biden's mental faculties in the wake of Special Counsel Robert Hur's explosive report, some of America's top news organizations on Tuesday effectively stated that Hur's characterization of the commander-in-chief was off base.

The Wall Street Journal declared that the transcripts of Biden's deposition with Hur released on Tuesday painted "a more nuanced picture" than the report indicated. The New York Times found that Biden appeared "clearheaded," despite having fumbled some dates. And The Washington Post concluded Biden "doesn’t come across as being as absent-minded as Hur has made him out to be."

In other words, the Hur report offered a misleading view of the president's mental state. That's a significant problem for news organizations, given that much of their recent coverage about Biden's age was derived from that very report where Hur offered a wince-inducing depiction of the president as a "sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory."

The acknowledgement from some, but not all, news outlets on Tuesday about the true nature of Biden's deposition marked another embarrassing moment for the national press, which has floundered at pivotal moments in the lead up to the crucial 2024 presidential election.

The deposition transcripts not only indicated that Biden appeared fairly sharp during his testimony, joking with investigators and retelling stories with granular detail, but that Hur was misleading in how he presented some of the information included in his report.

As The NYT's Charlie Savage noted on X, in one instance, "Based on a garbled moment, Hur claimed Biden forgot that the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan was an ally who shared his opposition to the surge. Hur omitted that a few minutes later, Biden brought up the ambassador again in a way that made clear he knew that."

Particularly jarring, was that at another point during the depositions, Hur actually went out of his way to praise Biden's memory. "You have — appear to have a photographic understanding and, and recall of the house," Hur told Biden, referencing the president's Wilmington home.

Strangely, that characterization of Biden didn't find its way into his report — and, thus, the crush of ensuing news stories. Instead, Hur chose to portray the president as a mentally diminished elderly man who struggled to recall basic information during his deposition, raising alarm bells about whether he had the fitness to serve in the nation's highest office.

Hur's characterization of Biden played directly into a years-long campaign waged by Biden's political opponents and the powerful right-wing media machine to depict the president as a senile, aloof man.

The special counsel's report was something of a gift to outlets like Fox News, which used the special counsel's characterization to validate its years of ugly attacks on Biden. Such outlets then pointed to the fact that Biden's mental fitness was being covered by prominent news organizations, contending that the issue had grown so serious the supposed "liberal media" could no longer ignore it.

To be fair to news organizations, they were faced with a thorny, difficult decision after the Hur report dropped. If they chose to dial back coverage, it could have looked like they were covering for Biden. On the other hand, leaning hard into the report, producing scores of stories and television segments about Hur's characterization of Biden's age, proved ultimately to be unwise as well.

What news organizations can do now, however, is forcefully acknowledge that the deposition transcript poured cold water on Hur's over-the-top characterization of Biden's mental fitness. Given the extensive coverage in the prior weeks, which seeped into the national consciousness, it is not sufficient to only tacitly acknowledge the reality of the situation.

But don't hold your breath that the news media will shout its findings from the mountain tops at the same volume and with the same vigor as it did after Hur's report was released. While The NYT, The WaPo, The WSJ, and a few others commendably acknowledged that the deposition transcripts rendered a more nuanced picture of Biden than Hur offered in his report, other outlets did not.

As Bill Grueskin, a renowned professor of professional practice at the Columbia Journalism School noted to me, "It’s very hard for someone who was involved in the coverage to critique their own methods. Because these things don't always lend themselves to straightforward corrections, like misspelling a name. It has to do more with how a news story is framed so readers understand the incompleteness of it."

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TikTok Got It Twisted: It's a political miscalculation that may prove fatal. The WSJ's Stu Woo, Georgia Wells, and Raffaele Huang reported Tuesday that TikTok was so "blindsided" by a House bill which could lead to a ban in the U.S. that its top executives flew to China just two weeks ago and assured their bosses that the app was not in danger from lawmakers. That lack of awareness about the bill was reflected in a statement the company provided to The WSJ. "This process was intentionally conducted in secret because the bill authors knew it was the only way they could move it forward," a TikTok spokesperson told the newspaper. Read the full piece here.

► Situational awareness: The House is set for its high-stakes vote Wednesday on the bill, which could pose an existential threat to TikTok's future in the U.S. In the run-up, TikTok is encouraging users to call their representatives with a full-screen notification about the legislation. The company's CEO, Shou Chew, has attempted to schedule 11th-hour meetings with members of Congress, CNN's Brian Fung reported. Meanwhile, U.S. intel chief Avril Haines told lawmakers on Tuesday that she couldn't rule out the possibility that China will use TikTok to influence 2024 U.S. elections.

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Tongue Tied on Tate: Major news organizations keep flashing signs that they are ill equipped — or simply unwilling — to properly cover the sinister forces radicalizing large sects of the public. The latest example came on Tuesday when Andrew Tate was detained in the U.K. on sex charges. Tate was inadequately described by a number of prominent news organizations (including the Associated Press, NPR, CNN, and others) as an online or controversial "influencer."

But, as we've pointed out before, he is much more than that. Tate gained infamy pushing misogynistic extremism to his young male audience. He is someone who openly admits he is a sexist and has made more reprehensible comments than can be accounted for. And he currently stands accused of human trafficking and rape in Romania (which he denies). In other words, he's not just a "controversial influencer." As we have repeatedly said, and will continue saying as long as necessary, it should not be hard to characterize dangerous figures like Tate in plain terms for the public, which relies on news outlets for such information. In fact, newsrooms are abdicating their duties by failing to do so.

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Google Gags Gemini: Don't expect Gemini to be able to help you answer any questions on the 2024 elections. Google on Tuesday said that it had prohibited its embattled A.I. chatbot from answering questions on the November vote "out of an abundance of caution on such an important topic." Indeed, when I asked Gemini various questions about the election on Tuesday, it flatly refused to provide an answer. The Guardian's Nick Robinson-Early has more details here.

🔎 Zooming in: The move to restrict the bot from weighing in on the 2024 election comes after some of its responses on other issues were framed by right-wing media, which aggressively targeted the company, as "woke." While the issue was more complicated than outlets like Fox News made it out to be, it still presented a big PR headache for Google and raised legitimate questions. By barring Gemini from answering hot-button political issues, Google is pretty clearly hoping to avoid fumbling on another issue and finding itself as a topic in the raging information wars.

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Prosecuting Polanski: Roman Polanski will face a Los Angeles civil trial in August 2025 for allegedly raping an underage woman in 1973, a judge determined Tuesday. Polanski, who has been a fugitive for decades after fleeing to France while being accused of raping a 13-year-old, will not be required to be present during the proceedings, given the trial is civil in nature. Gloria Allred, who is representing the anonymous plaintiff, said Tuesday that her client has "demonstrated enormous courage" in pressing the case forward in court, and that they "look forward to our fight for justice." The LAT's Christi Carras, Stacy Perman, and James Queally have more.